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<title>Under Pressure by effing_gravity (Malteaser)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26037526">Under Pressure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malteaser/pseuds/effing_gravity'>effing_gravity (Malteaser)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Fluff, I can't believe I'm punching my Best of Queen Song Title v-card on this, M/M, Nightmares, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Snugs (Snake Hugs)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:20:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,055</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26037526</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malteaser/pseuds/effing_gravity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale has a difficult time sleeping- or, at least, a difficult time staying asleep- until Crowley hits upon an unorthodox method of helping him rest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Omens Kink Meme</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Under Pressure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aziraphale did not sleep, and Crowley did. Crowley slept in the same manner as Aziraphale ate, point of fact: technically he didn't need to, but he had to exert effort to go without, and it tended to make him a bit cranky unless he was sufficiently distracted.<br/>
<br/>
They sufficiently distracted one another for a period of some months, more or less. They would go out to give themselves a break, get halfway through a show or a meal, and then realize that they didn't want to keep their hands off one another after all and then they would be off to the nearest reasonably private venue and right back at it.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually, things became less frantic and novel and more comfortable and familiar, and they were able to calm down in order to enjoy full meals and entire musicals once more. Aziraphale ate regularly, with Crowley watching besottedly on more often than not and occasionally partaking himself. Crowley slept, while Aziraphale read in bed next to him, or else watched him sleep, or else laid down beside him to enjoy a bit of cuddling.<br/>
<br/>
One night, after he had made such a progression: reading to watching to cuddling, he found himself closing his eyes and falling asleep.<br/>
<br/>
The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, there was a pain in his hand where he'd accidentally gotten ceramic in it when he shatter the bedside lamp, and Crowley was above him, trying desperately to pin him down, yelling "Aziraphale! I've got you, Aziraphale, wake up!"<br/>
<br/>
<em>Oh, right,</em> Aziraphale thought dazedly. He wasn't able to speak. He couldn't seem to breathe well enough for it. <em>That's why I don't sleep. I have horrible screaming nightmares every time.</em><br/>
<br/>
Very loud screaming too, apparently. One of his elderly neighbors actually roused herself to check on him, which was triply embarrassing because he hadn't actually seen Helen in well over a year, and had honestly presumed her to be deceased.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this is a lot of fuss and bother over something I can't even remember," Aziraphale grumbled, but accepted the cup of hot tea with honey and lemon that Crowley plied him with, and the soft knit blanket thrown over his shoulders, and the demon himself stroking his hands through his hair with a tenderness only he could conjure up.<br/>
<br/>
That was the end of it... until about two years later, when Aziraphale once more found that he'd drifted off without meaning to. Once more, he ended up on the floor, Crowley having given up on pinning him in favor of conjuring a bucket of ice water to throw over him, utterly ruining the book he'd been reading (though, to be fair, he had apparently torn it quite badly whilst thrashing about before the water had been brought into the equation).<br/>
<br/>
They had moved into the cottage by that point and it was a fairly secluded place too, so at the very least there were no nonagenarian neighbors to knock on their door wanting to know what all the screaming was about.<br/>
<br/>
Aziraphale accepted Crowley's comfort and remade his own vow not to sleep again, and then not a year later he broke it.<br/>
<br/>
There was very little he could do about it, as he wasn't trying to sleep. There was just a point where he got too comfortable and fell asleep whether that was the goal or not. He tried not allowing himself to cuddle against Crowley's sleeping form any more, but it just made them both a tad miserable. Crowley tried not sleeping for a time, which made them both quite a bit more than a tad miserable. Aziraphale tried getting up and making himself a coffee when he realized that he was getting sleepy, but that only woke Crowley up too. Eventually he just accepted that this was a price he would have to pay to keep this aspect of their relationship, and in all honesty, if there had been some way to ensure that Crowley was not awakened as well, he would have paid it gladly. As it stood, he paid it with begrudging frustration.<br/>
<br/>
And then, one night, things changed.<br/>
<br/>
It started out the same, with a nightmare, Aziraphale could recall that clearly, which was odd in and of itself. He'd never remembered what it was that had so upset him in his dreams before. Now, he knew. It was returning to Heaven. It was putting his uniform on. It was going to join his platoon as their commander, only to be pulled aside at the last second and being told <em>no, no there's one more thing to do before it comes to that...</em><br/>
<br/>
He was lead to one of Heaven's more nondescript rooms, and Aziraphale knew, he knew, that Crowley was in there. He knew what he would be expected to do.<br/>
<br/>
Except the door didn't open onto a vision of Crowley beaten and chained. It opened and suddenly Crowley was all around him, <em>wound</em> around him, the cool rasp of his scales surrounding him, the strength of his coils pressing him in tight.<br/>
<br/>
He still half-thought that he was in Heaven, and so he brought out his wings and wrapped them around them both, cocooning them, protecting Crowley as Crowley protected him.<br/>
<br/>
<em>I've got you, angel, I've got you.</em> Crowley's hiss was gentle and soothing. It was also true. He did have him, every inch of his being pressed in upon, carefully squeezed.<br/>
<br/>
Bit by bit, Aziraphale relaxed. He was no longer in Heaven, he thought, but somewhere on Earth. Perhaps Eden- somewhere safe and beautiful. He kept his wings out, hugging close to Crowley as Crowley hugged close to him.<br/>
<br/>
Gradually, Crowley's scales grew less cool and more sunned warm, and eventually, Aziraphale opened his eyes into the the peace of their own bedroom, have had a wonderful sleep that had lasted clear through the night and well into the following morning. He wasn't surprised to find that his wings were out. And as for Crowley, well: Crowley was Crowley, in all his serpentine glory, holding him close as only a snake could.<br/>
<br/>
"Go back to sssssssleep angel," came the lazy hiss from where his head was tucked up against Aziraphale's shoulder, and Aziraphale saw no reason why he should not do exactly that. He was, after all, dreadfully comfortable.</p>
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